Rent the Musical - Project Profile

Project Profile

RENT - the Musical Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester, UK www.jcjoel.com

Venue & Usage Theatre

Technology

Fabrication of Stage Set, Scenic Painting, Tracks, Drapery

Technical Components

Timber frames faced in birch-ply covered in vac-formed panels for the brickwork with custom paint treatment added to give the effect of original wood fired bricks.

Faux Steel Girder to tie the structure together.

3mm ply to adhere to the steel deck and scenically painted.

Integrated Voile drape on 2WAY track.

www.jcjoel.com

Overview During the depths of the Covid pandemic, J&C Joel was approached by Hope Mill Theatre, a converted mill building on the outskirts of central Manchester which is now an intimate 150 seat theatre, to build, paint and deliver the full scenic package for RENT – the Musical.

Chris Firth, head of the Creative team at J&C Joel, inspired by the courage of Hope Mill in putting on a production during Covid, saw this as an opportunity to help out Hope Mill, who had a very limited budget, and to also to provide some much-needed work for the high-quality freelance professionals he has worked with over the years.

This ambitious revival of the smash-hit musical by Jonathan Larson takes place in a static but transformable stage set, with the design based on a derelict New York city red brick apartment. Designed by David Woodhead, the stage set contains a nine-piece enclosing wall structure with a six panelled distressed window upstage, an integrated tracked Voile drape to mask off the ‘band’ during certain scenes, and a faux-steel girder which joins stage left to right and ties the structure together. This all came together to make a self-supporting structure. There are two raised platforms with detailed paintwork on each, where the bulk of the production is played, which needed to be a thin 3mm ply material to adhere to the venue’s existing steel deck. This show floor was sealed and glazed for durability.

The wall structures are a series of timber frames faced in birch-ply then covered using vac-formed panels for the brickwork. They were then painstakingly hand painted by scenic artists to resemble real woodfired brickwork from the correct time period, giving it age and texture and ensuring no one section was the same.

Due to the load in restrictions at Hope Mill, the set needed to break down into pieces to fit through a standard double door. Chris Bell, Production manager for RENT said: “Chris [Firth] and the team at J&C Joel have gone above and beyond on this production, and it shows in the final product. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have faced so many roadblocks, but the team dug in and got the production over the line and made the show something special. Before J&C Joel was engaged – this did not seem possible”.

The production opened on Friday 30 October 2020 to excellent reviews, but due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the show was cut short. The production was professionally filmed and is available to stream online at https://hopemilltheatre.co.uk.

RENT was named “Best Regional Theatre Production” at this year’s WhatsOnStage Awards, which is a well-deserved reward for all involved.

www.jcjoel.com

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